Welcome to the second part of this article series. Part 1 in this article series can be found here. When I started this series, I had only planned one article, thinking there weren’t that many things that de-railed a writer, not many things that took up their time. But as I researched ,I discovered we are very good at bad time management, and I couldn’t burden you with a six-thousand-word article. That would take you a long time to read, and you probably wouldn’t read it because you had other things to do with your time.
Let’s jump back in with some more reasons why we are terrible at time management.
Ineffective Delegation
This is where we fail to hand off projects or tasks to other people so we do them ourselves. Feeding the cat, doing the laundry or the dishes, gardening, and the chores around the house. Yes, we have some responsibility outside of writing (ghastly, I know), but sometimes we need to ask others to do our work for us, or the small tasks we don’t have to do, to free up time for creative outlets.
On the flipside of this, if we struggle to say no, we may end up being delegated other people’s problems and tasks, leaving us no time to do our own.
Overcoming Ineffective Delegation- There are some ways you can conquer this and stand your ground, or negotiate some time for yourself.
- Talk to whoever it is that could do these tasks for you, or who is asking you to do work for them. Tell them how writing time is important to you, and how you must block out this time to do it. You can negotiate swapping chores, or arranging to do work at another time.
- Know what needs to be done, when it needs to be done by whom and how it will be done. If you can understand this, then tasks can be delegated based on skill or availability, and your time can be better used.
- There can be cases where you do all the work because you don’t trust someone else to do it right. Give them a chance. Empower them with the task and give feedback so they can do it right. This not only can give you time, but also relax you from that whole burden of worrying if they’ve done a good job.
Not Utilising Technology
Wait, isn’t this an article about writers and creativity? Truth be told, technology can save us a lot of time. We can use it to manage our time, speed up tasks or do the mundane tasks that we feel we have to do, which is stealing that time and space away from our creativity. And when I say you can use technology to help, I am not talking about A.I. That is another kettle of worms altogether.
Utilising Technology- Knowing what apps and technology you have that can help you focus and help you be more efficient with time is a game-changer for you, not only for your creative life, but in other aspects of your life as well. Technology can give you access to wondrous things such as social media, YouTube and messenger apps, but that is not conducive to good time management.
- Task management programs- There are programs out there that can list tasks and projects to help organise your life and jobs. Trello is one which has lists you can create with tasks and projects. You can move cards from versions to edits to DONE and more. The practice of writing down the tasks you have and seeing them on a board is quite inspirational. Add other people to these boards for some accountability and suddenly these lists become more powerful.
- Time tracking tools- I’ve mentioned the Pomodoro method of productivity before but you can take this to the next level. You can track how long you do tasks, and track how long you are creative each day. Shifting from counting words to counting time when it comes to writing can be more productive and less stressful for you. Reports can show you when you write more often and for longer, and you could start to build a productive habit of writing when you’re most productive. Understanding your writing through a data-driven narrative can be eye-opening.
- Calendars and Scheduling. I have started doing this myself- blocking out time in my calendar for writing and creative purposes. I have linked this calendar with the important people in my life who understand my need to write, and it works. It may be the capitalist brain in me, but I see a block of time put away, I make sure I stick to it.
AND I book time in advance! I have a regular monthly block of time put aside on a Sunday afternoon that a few of us hop into to write and body double. It is something we quite often stick to as well!
Unclear Goals
What do you want to do? I want to write! Okay, sure, but what do you want to write? Did you want to write to a word count, or a time limit? Are you writing a short story, or perhaps a chapter on a novel? It’s all well and good to say you want time to write, time to be creative, but if you’re unclear about what you want to do with that you often spend a lot of the time trying to decide, asking other people, scrolling through projects. In short, you waste time trying to decide what to do.
With no direction, you tend not to go anywhere. You want to be more productive? Compared to what? And how much more productive do you want to be? If you don’t have clearly set goals, what you want to do could overwhelm you. You want to write a book? You know how big a book is? Okay, start now. Wow.
By the way, Written Off Writing is here to help you if you have unclear goals and don’t know exactly what to write. We give you ideas, crazy ideas, cool ideas, and focused time and space to write. Written Off Writing is excellent time management for you! Now, back to the article.
Overcoming Unclear Goals
- SMART goals. This is a marketing term and stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. You break your bigger goals into bite-sized pieces and then hold them up to these parameters. I want to write one chapter in the next two weeks. That is Specific, and it is measurable because 1 chapter is a thing you can hold in your hand, so to speak. Is it Achievable? Well, if I schedule some hours to write, I will hold myself to that. It is relevant because it has to do with my book and writing, and it is time-bound to 2 weeks.
The great thing about SMART goals is, if you don’t achieve them, you have 5 aspects to look at to see what didn‘t work. Did you need 3 weeks because of ‘Life’? So you reset the time bound, and reset the achievable bit, and go at it again. You keep doing this until you hit that perfect mix where you can have clear goals, and achieve them every time. In marketing, it is called A&B Split Testing. - Plan your time. Taking a step back to see your goals from a high
vantage point is a good idea. For novels, I use ‘Save the Cat! Writes a Novel’ to help plan my novels. From this, you can then block out time to write ‘beats’, clearly shown in your calendar- Thursday night, 8 pm – 10 pm, third beat- Hero meets the villain. You can see the mix of time management tools here. I am scheduling it and I am getting specific with what I am going to do. And having a small task means I avoid being overwhelmed with what I want to do. - Focus on one task. There may be a few different goals in mind when completing your creative project, but focus on just one task at a time. World-building? Want to create some characters? Do either one or the other. If you flip from one to the other you fall into the multitasking pitfall and will not be very productive.
Bad at estimating time
This time management issue impacts everyone, I think. Except Scotty from Star Trek. I remember him saying that when the Captain asked him how long a repair would take, he’d say 3 hours, knowing it would only take 2 hours, so he looked awesome.
We’re not so wily. You block out two hours in your calendar and sit there, you’re prepared to write chapter 3, and by the end of two hours, you’re nowhere near the end of the chapter. This can throw the rest of your plans out. You’ll now have to find another two hours before you hit chapter 4, or you shuffle everything forward on your schedule.
We can be bad at estimating time due to scope creep, where the task gets gradually bigger while we’re working it. It could be that we’ve not done this writing thing often enough to gauge how fast or how much we write in a session. Or we just fail to plan.
Overcoming being bad at estimating time. This is one of those time management problems that are easy to fix, it just takes practice.
- Track your time. Time yourself every time you write. Keep a log of how many words, or what scenes, you managed to write, and how long it took. The more data you have on this, the better you can plan your time effectively.
- This is what Scotty does. You might think- yeah, 1000 words, that will take me an hour. Give yourself 90 minutes. Not only does it lower the anxiety levels of trying to achieve 1000 words in an hour, but it also includes the idea that you will possibly flip through windows to check your socials now and then. Unless you’ve turn them off, like you should. Also know that there will inevitably be interruptions. This overestimating gives you some guilt-free wiggle room.
- Break down tasks into smaller tasks. Smaller tasks take less time. So if you think- it’s going to take me three hours to write this chapter, you can reframe that to an hour to write 5 pages, or something similar. Again, the more you write, the better you’ll be able to measure your time management.
Lack of Self-Discipline
This is another time management issue that I have to tackle with. Oh yes, I
am sharing these articles with you, dear reader and writer, but understand that I, too, have these problems. I am working through things, and hoping you can too!
Often, I find myself lounging on the couch with my wife and just enjoying her company. I like it. And you know? No one is going to be angry if I don’t work on my novel. Not writing won’t mean I miss a paycheck, I won’t flub a deadline. It is this lack of self-discipline that found me writing 50k words in November, and barely 20k outside of November.
Procrastination, feeling overwhelmed with your project or a lack of a plan and system are all reasons we lack self-discipline. I also believe it is a lack of care in ourselves as well. Self-discipline, making yourself do something creative, keeping a promise to yourself, is a powerful attribute to have. You are holding yourself accountable, and if you can do that for yourself, that is awesome.
Overcoming the lack of self-discipline- yes this is one of those things you need conquer yourself, but there are so many flow-on effects to the rest of your life if you can get some self-discipline practices working for you. You could end up eating better and doing exercise!
- Start with baby-steps. Don’t try to become focused and disciplined right away. You may overwhelm yourself and crawl away from it because it’s too much. Ten minutes before or after dinner as a start, is good. Not only is it small, it starts to build that habit. But remember to keep going through that hump. It will get too much to keep doing it, but fight through it, and it will become a regular part of your day.
- Use the tools available. Journals, scheduling software or calendars are your friends here. Not only does scheduling it make you feel like you have to keep the appointment, if you mark when you didn’t keep yourself accountable, it may also shift something inside you. You don’t want to disappoint yourself, so you will start to turn up.
- Manage distractions. The television gets turned off more often now. I have an agreement with my wife to do some writing after a certain time, so I spend time with her AND get to write. And to be honest, she is such a good distraction so yes, it must be managed. If you know what is keeping you from discipline, then get on top of it. Turn off the Wi-Fi for your laptop. Put your smartphone uncomfortably out of reach. Get some sound-cancelling headphones and use them. Know what steals your attention and steal it back.
There are still plenty more time management issues that writers need to look at and handle, and we will look at them in the New Year. Knowing there are a lot can, in itself, be overwhelming, and trying to work your way through them all could impact your time management issues. But that is okay, we’re not all impacted by these. Choose the biggest ones, tackle them, and conquer them. Once you’ve beaten them, work on the next one. Soon you will be able to schedule time for writing, creativity, walking the pets, watching TV and more!
Written Off Writing is a growing community of people who struggle to write, who don’t think they can, who don’t think they have any ideas, or the time to write. We have writing sessions outside the times people work regular jobs, so you can fit writing around your life. No need to feel like you have to write a novel, write some short stories and get into your creative groove.
If you think this fits who you are as a writer, find us on Patreon and join us for as little as $8 a month.
